Marvel's Ultimate Super Hero Collection which you can colect with News Corp Australia papers.. Picture: Tara Croser.

But thanks to the powerhouse performances of Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans and Aussie Chris Hemsworth respectively, those once obscure superheroes have joined the likes of Batman, Superman and Spider-Man as household names.

Since the first Iron Man movie was a breakout hit in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the undisputed heavyweight champion of the box office this century, raking in a combined $14.4 billion across 13 films so far — and with another nine films coming in the next three years.

But while the blockbuster superhero franchise is a relatively recent phenomenon, the comic book company that created them all has been around in its modern form since 1961, when revered writer Stan Lee revolutionised the genre with The Fantastic Four. And while Marvel Comics has had a dedicated fan base ever since, editor-in-chief Axel Alonso admits that the films — along with the rise of geek culture — have been invaluable in bringing their characters to the mainstream.

Marvel's Ultimate Super Hero Collection coming to readers from News Corp Australia. Picture: Tara Croser.Source:News Corp Australia

Marvel's Ultimate Super Hero Collection for News Corp Australia readers. Picture: Tara Croser.Source:News Corp Australia

“It’s been huge because we now live in a world where the average person knows who Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Scarlet Witch are,” Alonso says. “They even know who (Guardian of the Galaxy characters) Rocket and Groot are. That is a seismic change for publishing because we aren’t starting on the ground floor when we are looking for new readers.”

Alonso says the enduring appeal of the Marvel superheroes, which also include Hulk, Ant-Man, X-Men, Black Widow, Ghost Rider and hundreds more, has ironically never been their superpowers — but rather their humanity.

Marvel Comics Editor in Chief Axel Alonso shares his thoguhts on the comic books’ success.Source:Supplied

“Each hero has his or her strengths and weaknesses,” he explains. “Iron Man has his hubris, the Hulk has his temper — so there is a character for everyone. All of them are in their way aspirational and they face problems that are scaled to super-size.

“At Marvel Comics our guiding philosophy is that our comics should reflect what we call the world outside your window. The Marvel universe’s home base is New York City — it’s not Metropolis or Gotham — and that’s for a reason.

“It’s so we can connect with people in their daily lives. Of course the world outside your window is diverse, complicated, oftentimes scary and doesn’t look the same now as it did in 1961 when the first Marvel Comics went to the printer. We engage the world directly through metaphor and that’s our mandate.”

That mandate has meant some serious changes for some of the best loved Marvel characters too, and since taking the reins as editor in chief five years ago, Alonso has made it a priority for the comics he oversees to reflect the diversity of the world around him, even if they bear little relation to the traditional characters or their big screen counterparts. Just last week Marvel announced that the new Iron Man would no longer be Tony Stark, as personified by Robert Downey Jr in the movies, but an African American teenager named Riri Williams.

“I love the landscape now,” Alonso says. “We have an African-American Captain America, a female Thor, a Korean-American Hulk, a female Captain Marvel, a Pakistani-American Ms Marvel, and African-American-Hispanic Spiderman, a Mexican-American Ghost Rider and the just announced African-American Iron Man.

An illustration of Captain America from the Marvel Ultimate Super Hero Collection.Source:Supplied

“Our comic books reflect the world and I think that it’s great that you can peel back these masks and show a different face.”

It’s been a long time since comics were seen as being just for kids. Titles such as Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns elevated the art form in the mid to late 1980s and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, an allegory for the Holocaust, became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Celebrated US journalist and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, winner of last year’s US National Book Award, penned a recent Black Panther comic that is likely to be one of the best-selling titles of 2016. Alonso says that comics can be an effective way of dealing with serious issues and involving audiences in discussions they might not otherwise contemplate. Captain America: Civil War, the highest grossing film of the year so far, was based on a story inspired by and written in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“It asked the question that people were asking themselves here in our country which is how much of your freedom are you willing to give up for more security,” Alonso says. “The Superhuman Registration Act was a metaphor for the Patriot Act and the questions we were asking in that comic book were our way of weighing in on what we deemed as being the most pressing question of the day.”

Similarly, the X-Men, who first rose to prominence during the civil rights turmoil of the early 1960s, became a symbol for being different that is as relevant now as it was 50 years ago.

“They became wildly popular because they provided a very potent metaphor to talk about subjects that people otherwise get too uncomfortable talking about,” Alonso says. “Issues of racial inequality, sexism, bullying and homophobia.”

Alonso says his team at Marvel Comics are constantly in touch with the team at Disney who make the movies, but that the two are not by any means “in lock-step” for logistic as well as creative reasons.

Marvel's Ultimate Super Hero Collection coming to readers. Picture: Tara Croser.Source:News Corp Australia

“It wouldn’t work for me here,” he says. “We are a high-volume publisher — we publish 63 to 70 titles a month, year-round and we are planned about a year and a half into the future in terms of the larger Marvel Universe and months into the future in terms of individual books.

“So our mandate is to tell the most exciting, forward-thinking, relevant stories we can. If one of them ends up being material in the movie — like Winter Soldier or Civil War — then that’s great. But that’s not the goal for us.”

And as for the movie he thinks best captured the essence of one of the comic storylines?

“I loved Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” he says. “It felt like one of those 1970s espionage flicks combined with a superhero movie. It felt like Three Days Of the Condor, The Day Of the Jackal, The Manchurian Candidate, The Parallax View. It felt like a paranoid conspiracy thriller — with a lot of punching and kicking.”

The Sunday and Daily Telegraph next week launch the Marvel Ultimate Super Hero Comic Collection. There are 14 to collect. The first Spider-Man and a collector case are free when you buy The Sunday Telegraph. Details: marvelcollection.com.au